Chelmsford Trailer Park, Inc. v. Town of Chelmsford

• Decision Date: 25 October 1984
• Citation: 393 Mass. 186,469 N.E.2d 1259
• Parties: CHELMSFORD TRAILER PARK, INC. v. TOWN OF CHELMSFORD et al. 1
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

Page 1259

469 N.E.2d 1259

393 Mass. 186

CHELMSFORD TRAILER PARK, INC. v. TOWN OF CHELMSFORD et al. ¹

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

Argued June 4, 1984.

Decided Oct. 25, 1984.

Peter B. Sessa, Boston, for Chelmsford Mobile Home Park Tenants Ass'n, Inc. (James M. Harrington, Chelmsford, for the town of Chelmsford & others, with him).

Vincent R. Brogna, Boston (Edward H. London, Lowell, with him), for plaintiff.

Richard C. Allen, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the Atty. Gen., joined in a brief.

Before HENNESSEY, C.J., and WILKINS, ABRAMS, LYNCH and O'CONNOR, JJ.

LYNCH, Justice.

The plaintiff, the owner of a mobile home park, challenges the validity of St.1983, c. 449 (the act), an act enabling the town of Chelmsford to adopt a by-law to control rents and evictions in mobile home parks, and the validity of the by-law adopted by the town pursuant to the act.

The owner's complaint sought a declaratory judgment that the act and the by-law were invalid and unconstitutional, as well as preliminary and permanent injunctions against the implementation of the by-law by the town. The Attorney General intervened as a party defendant pursuant to G.L. c. 231A, § 8. On April 9, 1984, a judge in the Superior Court granted the preliminary injunction sought by the owner. On May 3, 1984, a Justice of this court transferred the case from the Superior Court to the Supreme Judicial Court for Suffolk County pursuant to G.L. c. 211, § 4A, and the parties filed a statement of agreed facts. On May 14, the case was reserved and reported without decision to the full court. The parties waived oral argument on the issues, but on June 4, 1984, presented argument on a motion of the tenants' association and the town, assented to by the Attorney General, that the court vacate the injunction against implementation of the by-law. That motion was denied on June 5, 1984. We conclude that both the by-law and the enabling act are constitutional and enforceable.

The plaintiff is a corporation owning approximately thirty-eight acres of land in the town and licensed pursuant to G.L. c. 140, § 32B, to operate and to do business as a mobile home park. There is no other mobile home park licensed by the town. The Chelmsford Mobile Home Park has approximately 600 residents, with space for 254 mobile homes. Park residents own their mobile homes. For a monthly fee, the owner provides the land for the homes, connections for water and sewerage pipes and electrical services, and various other services, such as rubbish disposal, road maintenance and plowing, outside lighting and general maintenance.

At a special town meeting on May 16, 1983, the town voted to petition the Legislature for enabling legislation that would permit the town to adopt a rent and eviction control by-law. Pursuant to that vote, a home rule petition was filed with the Legislature and on or about October 27, 1983, the act was signed into law. In January, 1984, a special town meeting adopted a by-law implementing the provisions of the act.

1. The act and the by-law. Although it is not identical in every particular with rent control acts previously enacted in the Commonwealth, ² the act is similar to those other laws in substance, language, and tone. Section 1 is a declaration of public emergency by the Legislature, "which emergency has been created by excessive, abnormally high and unwarranted rental increases imposed by some ³ owners of mobile home parks." Section 2 authorizes the town to adopt as a town by-law the subsequent sections. Section 3 is a definitional section, not materially different from parallel sections in other rent control statutes, and not at issue here. Section 4 establishes a mobile home park rent control board (rent board) consisting of five residents of the town to be appointed by the board of selectmen. Section 5 directs the rent board to "set maximum rents, set minimum standards for use or occupancy of mobile home parks and evictions of tenants therefrom" and empowers the rent board to "make rules and regulations, sue and be sued, compel attendance of persons and the production of papers and information, and issue appropriate orders which shall be binding on both the owner and tenants ...." Section 6 concerns individual and general rent adjustments and is set out in full in the margin. ⁴ Section 7 states that "[t]he Board may regulate evictions of tenants at mobile home parks and may issue orders which shall be a defense to an action of summary process for possession." Section 8 establishes that the rent board is subject to the provisions of G.L. c. 30A as if it were an agency of the Commonwealth, and jurisdiction of all petitions for review is vested in the Lowell Division of the District Court and in the Superior Court. Section 9 limits initially the monthly rent of a mobile home lot to the rent charged the occupant six months prior to the adoption of the by-law by the town meeting. A fine of not more than $1,000 for any one offense is authorized by § 10. Section 11 is a severability clause.

The by-law adopted the language of the act verbatim, with a slight change in the wording of § 2, which in the by-law states: "The Town of Chelmsford hereby adopts the following nine sections as a Town by-law which shall be known and may be cited as the 'Mobile Home Rent Control By-law.' "

2. Delegation of legislative authority. The main thrust of the owner's argument is that the act is an unlawful delegation of legislative authority to the rent board because it fails to delineate sufficiently specific guidelines, standards, and procedures for the application of the by-law by the board. Although the act is less detailed than rent control laws referred to by the owner, it nevertheless provides sufficient direction to enable the rent board to implement its policies and sufficient safeguards to protect against arbitrary action or abuse of discretion.

The owner has identified three areas of the act in which it argues there are insufficiently detailed standards. We shall address each one separately, but a few general comments about delegation of legislative authority will help focus the individual analyses.

Provided that the policy and purpose of the Legislature are clearly expressed, the absence of detailed standards in the legislation itself will not necessarily render it invalid as an unlawful delegation of legislative authority. "The standards for action to carry out a declared legislative policy may be found not only in the express provisions of an act but also in its necessary implications. The purpose, to a substantial degree, sets the standards. A detailed specification of standards is not required. The Legislature may delegate to a board or officer the working out of the details of a policy adopted by the Legislature." Massachusetts Bay Transp. Auth. v. Boston Safe Deposit & Trust Co., 348 Mass. 538, 544, 205 N.E.2d 346 (1965). This principle applies equally in the area of rent control legislation. "Having adopted a policy of rent control by this emergency legislation [the Legislature] may also delegate to the cities and towns as governmental agencies the administration of its details in respect to matters peculiarly affecting local interests." Russell v. Treasurer & Receiver Gen., 331 Mass. 501, 507, 120 N.E.2d 388 (1954).

No formula exists for determining whether a delegation of legislative authority is "proper" or not. Here, in order to make that determination, we undertake a threefold analysis: (1) Did the Legislature delegate the making of fundamental policy decisions, rather than just the implementation of legislatively determined policy; (2) does the act provide adequate direction for implementation, either in the form of statutory standards or, if the local authority is to develop the standards, sufficient guidance to enable it to do so; and (3) does the act provide safeguards such that abuses of discretion can be controlled? We examine the three aspects of the act which, the owner argues, contain an improper delegation of legislative authority.

a. Procedural requirements. The act does not provide a timetable for the rent board to act on rent adjustments or evictions. Neither do any of the other rent control acts upheld by this court. The rent board has not had the opportunity to develop any working rules nor to demonstrate how quickly or slowly it will work. The owner cites Carson Mobile Home Park Owners' Ass'n v. Carson, 35 Cal.3d 184, 197 Cal.Rptr. 284, 672 P.2d 1297 (1983), as suggesting that time constraints are required. No such message can be found in that case, however. There a rent control ordinance set a total of 105 days for the rent control board to act on a rent increase application. In upholding the act, the court did not suggest that this or any other time limit was required. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, it is to be presumed that the rent board will act in a reasonable and timely manner.

b. Eviction provisions. Section 7 of the act states that "[t]he Board may regulate evictions of tenants at mobile home parks and may issue orders which shall be a defense to an action of summary process for possession." It does not include, as do some other rent control acts, a list of reasons for which an owner is permitted to bring an eviction action. See, e.g., St.1976, c. 37, § 8 (Somerville). ⁵ Because of the absence of this list, the owner argues, the rent board has unbridled power to regulate evictions, and can be subject to no meaningful review. No such result follows.

In Grace v. Brookline, 379 Mass. 43, 49, 399 N.E.2d 1038 (1979), this court acknowledged that cities and towns which have adopted a policy of rent control may regulate evictions of tenants. The act upheld in Grace, supra 379 Mass. at 45-46 & n. 8, 399 N.E.2d 1038 (St.1970, c. 843), did not include a list of reasons justifying eviction.

It does not follow, as the owner contends, that the rent board has no standards whatsoever to guide it...